I did have a very restricted, regimented life. There was a kind of happiness there, a contentment, but it was a small happiness within very clear and delineated borders.

I love music. I have a fondness for Chopin, and I very much like his 'Raindrop Prelude.'

I have never played the lottery in my life and never will. Voltaire described lotteries as a tax on stupidity. More specifically, I think, on innumeracy.

There is no such thing as an average person. They really are guidelines for people to grapple with the unknown, and we can always surprise expectations.

Every culture has contributed to maths just as it has contributed to literature. It's a universal language; numbers belong to everyone.

It was hard for me to find my voice because I was, for so long, absorbed in my own world.

You don't have to be disabled to be different, because everybody's different.

When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without having to think.

The human brain is like a memory system that records every thing that happens to us and makes intelligent predictions based on those experiences.

I changed my name because it didn't fit with the way I saw myself.

When I achieved the European record for reciting pi in 2004, this captured the imagination of Professor Simon Baron-Cohen in Cambridge and he finally diagnosed me with Asperger's that year.

Welfare reforms and the whole “happy” exploitation movement are not “baby steps.” They are big steps–in a seriously backward direction.

It was one of those perfect fall days when the air is cool enough to wake you up but the sun is also kissing your face.

In retrospect, the pace of change in the arts and industry in the nineteenth century seems pretty glacial. Painting, music, the novel, architecture were all evolving, but at a pretty observable pace.

He that by the Plough would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive.

We know well only what we are deprived of.

Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies.

My solo albums were each like a half-finished puzzle; they represented only the beginning of a full picture. Simply put, they were inadequate and incomplete.

The thing about delirium is you think it's great, but it actually isn't.

I cannot stress the importance of pausing to take a few deep breaths throughout the day. It's simple and effective.

We just wanted to build the best thing we could build